Do sheep and beef farmers have what it takes to create advantages from a disruptive future?

Posted by Brendon Walsh on 2 August 2017

While facilitating the GrowFARM® North Island Regional Mastermind Meeting in Taupo last week, I was struck by the degree of confidence among my clients about moving forward into the future. In these days where disruption is normal, the positivity about how they will be able to meet, cope with, and create advantages from change, was incredibly refreshing. I say refreshing because historically their industry has been slow to change, and has often resisted it.

Although there was concern about particular changes being forced upon all farmers in an adhoc and sometimes thoughtless manner, or about how created value needs to be spread to the participants in short value chains, there was no negativity about moving ahead through the disruption. In fact, there was a welcoming of it if anything because of the acceptance to evolve our industry into a strong and vibrant sector of the NZ economy. They accept what they can’t directly control and are instead focusing on what they can do to create advantages from here on.

Of course, there are many farmers who are not GrowFARM® clients and who are also on this track. It got me thinking about the ability (or lack thereof) of our NZ sheep and beef farmers to do exactly this on a much wider scale. Are they capable enough? Can they do it? Are they able to create advantages from change and challenge too?

I always come back to one answer - they are definitely capable of doing it. They all have the ability to do this. But there are conditions and this is really the key. It is not so much about can they do it - it is more about what would cause them to do it, or quite simply “will they do it?”

For any of us to do anything, the outcome must be incredibly meaningful to us and must help us achieve what’s most important to us in some way. If it isn’t and doesn’t, we tend to be not very interested - we won’t really give it the time of day. If we have no buy in to the outcome or some compelling reason for us to expend effort, we just won’t! Sound selfish? Maybe, but as humans we seem to be wired to focus our efforts to where key benefits flow. Even those who volunteer their time to causes do so because it helps them in some way e.g. they feel needed, they create opportunities for good to be done, the cause is dear to them due to something that deeply affected them in the past, the list goes on…. And this is where our industry tends to miss the point.

All farmers CAN do what it takes, if they see enough value in it for themselves, and if they want to achieve it badly enough. My clients have proven it and they are the first people to say they are just normal farmers trying to get somewhere e.g. where they originally may have been frightened of change and were tentative about varying their stocking rates at particular times of the year, they now do it as part of their everyday decision making because it provides them the opportunity to vastly increase their business profit, stay ahead of the game and achieve what they really want.

Sure, some skills will need upgrading but that can be taken care of because if that is what someone needs to do to achieve what is most important to them, they will move heaven and earth to learn them. People will create and evolve if they really want to. Human evolution has occurred over tens of thousands of years but the evolution of our thoughts and actions can happen a lot quicker, sometimes in just a few seconds.

So, ability is less important while the will to get on and get it done is more important. It usually is just down to the level of connection we have in our minds between the actions / outcomes, and what is most important to us. If there is a disconnect, there is no reason to push forward. If there is strong connection, we move forward.

To any farmers reading this - please work on clarifying what is most important to you, and then on how your daily thinking, decisions and actions connect to the achievement of that.

To any business professionals who have sheep and beef farmer clients, how about helping them connect their daily thinking, decisions and actions to the achievement of what is most important to them? Remember, your purpose is to create benefits for them so they grow, and as a result you do more and better business. Working with farmers for your benefit first, negates this opportunity. We can all help to create a great culture in the farming industry, with those involved doing what it takes to move ahead, create value and build a strong industry.

Do you have what it takes? Absolutely! Will you do what it takes? That is the real question…….

If you are curious about how the GrowFARM® System can help sheep and beef farmers generate the profits they really want, contact me here.